Out of Nowhere by Sandra Brown

Author:Sandra Brown [BROWN, SANDRA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2023-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Since this morning’s broadcast, Shauna had been fielding calls one right after the other. Therefore, she didn’t first check the ID before answering the incoming call by pressing the button on her steering wheel.

“Shauna Calloway.”

“You threw me under the bus.”

It was her sleazy source, Billy Green. “I did no such thing, and I won’t.”

“No, but you’ve created a shit show in this precinct, in the whole damn department. If anybody finds out that I’m the one who fed you that information—”

“They won’t find out unless you panic, behave like a moron, and give yourself away.”

“Yesterday, there was a handful of personnel from other agencies working with Compton and Perkins,” he said rapidly and furtively. “All part of the task force investigating the shooting along with our CID. Now the place is crawling—crawling, I’m telling you—with DPS troopers, Texas Rangers, you name it. The attorney general’s office was on the phone with the sheriff, who’s gone apeshit, on the verge of a stroke, someone said, and—”

“Calm. Down.” She could imagine him sputtering, spraying spit, wiping the greasy sweat off his high forehead.

“Calm down, she says.” Lowering his voice to a creaky whisper, he said, “The whole goddamn department is on edge. Everybody’s suspecting everybody. All because of you.”

“No, all because of you wanting to get up my skirt. Right? There wouldn’t have been a story causing the havoc you describe if you hadn’t given me those names yesterday.”

He admitted no complicity. “You did yourself no favors, you know.”

“I bagged the big story. That’s my job.”

“Yeah, but now your Mr. Jaguar with the full head of hair has a bull’s-eye between his broad shoulders. Did you think of that?”

“He’ll be protected. All of them will be.”

“Says you.”

“What do you say?” She laid the trap subtly, betting that he would step into it, and he did.

“They were rounded up. Lickety-split.”

She deliberately downplayed that. “Naturally they would be. That’s hardly a headliner.” She waited, listening to him breathe while he weighed his options and considered whether impressing her was worth taking another risk.

Finally, he said, “They’ve moved them somewhere. Your dickhead boyfriend, the lady whose kid died, and the woman you interviewed in the hospital.”

“What about the other two?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on.”

“Swear. All I’ve heard is that those three have been relocated to a safe house.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Swear to God.”

“I don’t believe in God,” she said, “and I seriously doubt that you do.”

“Someplace out of the county. That’s all I know, and that’s the truth.”

“Can you find out where?”

“Haven’t you been listening? I would bet my left nut that there are appointed spies in this building trying to sniff out the snitch.”

“You’re being paranoid, Billy.”

“Uh-huh. This is different. This isn’t like the time you asked me to get the exact amount of money a CEO took from the corporate kitty to pay his call girls for blow jobs.

“This shooting investigation wasn’t going gangbusters anyway, but you really fucked it up. Somebody hung a channel seven poster in the lobby and put a dart through the picture of you, right between your eyes.

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